Man Room Construction

tryrrthg

This is a pretty cool read. Three articles detailing the construction of this guys dedicated 2 channel listening room, with full blown acoustic measurement and treatments. Oh how nice it must be to be rich.

http://www.ultraaudio.com/twbas/twbas_20050915.htm

http://www.ultraaudio.com/twbas/twbas_20051215.htm

http://www.ultraaudio.com/twbas/twbas_20060215.htm


I wonder how it compares to this guy's room:

Link 1
Link 2

Dennis Gardner

Cool article, but should have been named "How to make a terrible room design sound decent". With as much effort as went into the construction, a separate room with the correct dimensions could have been built. i'm sure that space wouldn't allow that, or he would have gone that route.

Lavigne's room in Washington has got to sound much more open, and natural. The sheer size that the barn allowed, has to make a difference in how it turned out.

I'm sure each has it good and bad points. The small room might be great to listen to "intimate" jazz recordings, but a symphony in the attic is a stretch, where Lavigne's huge room would seem more appropriate for the concert hall type venue.

I do give credit for $$$ invested and effort given for both, as most of us don't get past the focus on gear aquisitions. We spend more on cabling than room treatments with less results, simply because it is easier to understand and implement.

criverajr

You have got to be kidding, the time and effort these guys put into their rooms is amazing, this is truely the next level. Does my system sound very good for what it is, yes, but come on these room are on another level. I have seen a few comments on rooms like this in the past, like my polks sound just as good, NOT! We have what we have but their is better out their, don't kid yourself. This guy had professionals doing whole room frequency sweeps, not in my humble system. Just a whole different level. Just my opinion.

CRj

Dennis Gardner

Flattening out the room response in the low range was cool. He used a sub set in the area of the peak, tuned 67.5 degrees out of phase from his speakers. An actual wave cancelling method instead of acoustic treatment, or electronic equalizing. I wouldn't want a bunch of subwoofers sitting all around my room used just as cancellation devices, but the method deserves notice.

Kudos for a novel attempt..............

Schris22

that Lavigne's room is always on the featured list on Audiogon's virtual systems and it's amazing. Really wouldn't mind hearing it. I really want to focus on acoustical treatments next year but seems sometimes that the room acoustics price starts a lot higher then some of the smallest upgrades for the cables that Dennis was talking about. At least thats what I think. These BJC and Signal cables start at 40 bucks but to fully treat a room cost so much more.

Chris

jm1

tryrrthg,

Thanks for the links. That was an interesting read.

Having been through the room optimization cycle (unfortunately not anywhere near this level; yet?), the text before the 'Music Vault complete' heading in the third installment (February 15, 2006) of the series highlight several key points generally underestimated. One thing that I have learned is that this sentence:

“We don’t listen in anechoic chambers; we listen in rooms, or to rooms, as the case may be.”

is more true than most realize.

I imagine both rooms sound spectacular. Mr. Lavigne’s room is amazing and is a personal favorite. I can not say that I think much of Mr. Fritz’s choice of room title. To each his own. As a side note, if he was a true ‘audiophile of the highest order’, he would have moved to a more suitable location for an audio room, as did Mr. Lavigne.

One point I have taken away from these articles is the extensive use of diffusion. Fortunately, the tube traps I constructed have one half diffusive. Looks like I have more experimentation to conduct. The next step will be to treat the ceiling. I like what Rives did for Mr. Lavigne’s room. I now need to design and build something for an 8’ ceiling…

tryrrthg

Good comments guys.

Rives offers a few "levels" for room tweaking, level 1 around $1000, and level 2 around $2500, I think. They seem pretty reasonable considering what some of us spend on equipment that probably doesn't make near the difference that the room does. If I ever move to a house that I would be in for the long haul, I think it would be money well spent to give Rives a try.